Happy Father’s Day Dad. After spending a year

Happy Father’s Day Dad. After spending a year of being 100% bipolar, I sometimes wonder how you made it 50 years, seemingly without support of any kind. I have all the support I could ask for and I think I’ll look like an old war horse by the time I’m 50. 

You provided, but weren’t always emotionally there. I understand that, now. I forgive you and I know you forgive me for not understanding. I’m sorry I didn’t praise you for being a good father when you were alive. All I saw were your short comings. I didn’t understand your struggle. 

I wish I could say it loud enough that I know you’d hear it, 

I LOVE YOU

Forgive Me Father, For I Have Sinned.

Or maybe I haven’t.

Or maybe I have, and I’m just gonna go to hell.

Or maybe I have, and it’s forgivable. 

I mean, I broke a commandment. Thou shalt not commit adultery. There has to be some repercussion for that, right? Some penance? I need penance. It’s not a “Oh, she was manic, she has an illness, she loves her husband and didn’t mean to hurt him – it was wrong, but it’s ok, you need to forgive yourself.” That just doesn’t sound right to me. But I kinda feel like that’s what I’m getting from my therapist.

She said I need to “do whatever you need to do to feel better”. Yeah, we’re at that point. 6 months later, and I’m not forgiving myself still. It’s like she’s pulling her hair out and looking confused wondering why I just can’t get over it. I thought it would just happen over time.

I know, for someone who did what I did, that this will sound really wrong, and maybe like a flat out lie. But I have strong morals. Which is probably why it’s so hard for me to let this go. Pillars says he has forgiven me. I have made great strides in attaining a normal mood, adjusting my life so it’s more kind to me. But I’m holding on to this nasty, hurtful feeling, and I’m not sure how to let it go.

My therapist asked Tuesday, “Why did you do it?”

“Because I couldn’t not do it. It was a physical urge. It wasn’t even an option. It was an energy. It didn’t make sense.”

“And that is Bipolar. It doesn’t make sense.”

Pillars asked why I am looking for sense in something that doesn’t make sense. Why can’t I just let it be: something that happened that doesn’t make sense.

I guess because I haven’t tortured myself enough yet.

If I wanna torture myself, fine. But the reason I am trying to figure this out is because I think that it’s coming between me and Pillars, physically. I had been explaining my low sex drive (I’m only wanting it once every 10 days or so) to meds, life, everything else. But things keep becoming clear to me – I’m able to see ways I am sabotaging myself . Ways I am lying to myself, maybe little white lies to others in effort to be what they expect me to be – or what I think they expect me to be. Doing things I don’t want to do, worrying about people judging me for any little thing. I wasn’t being true to myself; I might not even know who myself really is. I didn’t notice I was doing all of this, and now I’m slowly seeing it all.

So it became clear to me last week when we were having sex that I get little flashbacks, images, etc of my affairs. And of course that floods me with negative emotions: disgust, anger, hopelessness, pity, and more. I get really uncomfortable, and Pillars can tell. Therefore, sex = negative emotions for me. Hence why I hardly ever “feel like it”. We figured all that out in marriage therapy.

Now, I want to forgive myself for my husband. So we can have that intimacy back. So I can be his and be present while we are in bed. 0

I think a confession would be a good step forward. It seems to be what my mind always comes back to when I think of forgiving myself.

On the topic of the ten commandments – people commit murder to save themselves, people work on Sundays, people say the Lord’s name in vain, people covet what their neighbor has…

So it’s common place. It happens. A lot. I probably shouldn’t be so uptight about it.

But a little bit of me worries that if I let this go, I’ll do it again. But I’d have to be manic, and I keep too close a guard on my symptoms and my moods, Pillars pays close attention, and I see my therapist(s) too often for this to happen. So I should just let it go and trust myself and all of them.

That’s where I am. Focusing on that. Or trying not to focus on that. Whichever.

My Incredible Shrinking Brain

In an effort to help me get over my guilt of what I’ve done, I’m doing more research on what amounts to the proof of the existence of Bipolar Disorder. Yes, I know it exists. I know. But I’m trying to help myself believe that I wasn’t in control of myself. I need to quit beating myself up. My husband has managed to forgive me in a way I haven’t been able to forgive myself. That in itself confuses me.

I’m not expecting to find much I don’t already know, as there isn’t much to know, and I researched the heck out of it in the weeks following my diagnosis. In order to live with this illness you have to learn to manage it. In order to manage it, you have to understand it.

I found a study that used digital brain imaging to compare Bipolar brains to “normal” brains. It was a pretty large study, with over 600 people in each category. They concluded that Bipolar brains shrink. The biggest question the study raised is whether the disorder (which is seemingly a brain disease) CAUSES the brain the shrink or whether the shrinking brain CAUSES the disorder. I found this BBC article a much easier read than the study. Maybe because my brain is shrinking.

I’ve had an increasingly shitty memory, but I’ve attributed that (along with a lot of other negative attributes) to having given birth to 3 children over the span of 3.5 years.

To be honest, I’m not even sure if a picture of my brain being all crazy would help me forgive myself or not. I think I have all the scientific information I need. My forgiveness needs to come from inside, not from a study. But I’m still angry at myself. My intense feelings are still confusing me. I’m just not able to do it yet. But I’m moving in that direction. I want  to forgive myself. I just don’t trust myself right now. Every time I get excited, my radar goes off, and I start questioning my feelings. Then I can’t really enjoy being excited.

I often think this would be easier for me (and possibly for my husband, too) if I had just had an affair. A regular old affair. Emotions or not. That’s something you can heal from and then be in control of for the rest of your life. I am devoted to my medication, my therapy, etc. But I don’t trust myself still. I guess because this came from out of the blue and sucker punched me. I thought I was OK when I was sleeping with my boss, running 10 miles a week, getting drunk, considering becoming a stripper. I really did. I was happy. I thought I was awesome.

I just wanna be able to feel happy and awesome and not stop in my tracks to question if I am stable or not.

So we’ve established that bipolar disorder is not fair. Not fair at all.